Academic Job Satisfaction from an International Comparative Perspective: Factors Associated with Satisfaction Across 12
In many ways, the academic profession is one of the “key professions” in the knowledge society. Academics hold central positions in the knowledge society through their traditional roles as producers of knowledge and educators of knowledge workers. Univers
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Academic Job Satisfaction from an International Comparative Perspective: Factors Associated with Satisfaction Across 12 Countries Peter James Bentley, Hamish Coates, Ian R. Dobson, Leo Goedegebuure, and V. Lynn Meek
In many ways, the academic profession is one of the “key professions” in the knowledge society. Academics hold central positions in the knowledge society through their traditional roles as producers of knowledge and educators of knowledge workers. Universities are also emerging as a key source of innovation and economic and social development, taking on responsibilities previously in the realm of business and government (Etzkowitz et al. 2007). However, the positive and opportunistic outlook of university-driven innovation is contingent upon individual academics successfully adapting to these new roles and balancing competing demands. Across a wide range of studies, job satisfaction has been shown to correlate significantly with job performance, with the strongest correlation found in jobs requiring complexity and autonomy (Judge et al. 2001). Change has always been a key feature of the university and the academic profession, but academics have rarely played a positive role in initiating or supporting institutional reform. Almost without exception, academics defend traditions and the status quo, regardless of whether such traditions serve the long-term interest of the university (Altbach 1980). The university’s durability can be partly credited to the conservatism of the
P.J. Bentley • L. Goedegebuure • V.L. Meek L.H. Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia H. Coates L.H. Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), Melbourne, Australia I.R. Dobson (*) Higher Education Governance and Management Unit, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland School of Education and Arts, University of Ballarat, Australia e-mail: [email protected] 239 P.J. Bentley et al. (eds.), Job Satisfaction around the Academic World, The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective 7, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-5434-8_13, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
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professoriate. Conservatism protects the university from ill-advised change or change for the sake of change. On the other hand, conservatism can also obstruct desirable change. Undoubtedly, the rise of the knowledge society envisages changes to traditional academic roles, and a motivated academic workforce, satisfied with their reconstructed academic jobs, is most likely to produce the greatest benefit to research, innovation and society. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that stakeholders seeking to influence the university’s role in the knowledge society understand what motivates academics in their everyday work. This, of course, is equally true for those in charge of our universities, be they
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